Tale of two earthquakes

Thousands of Iranians have gathered in the southeastern city of Bam to mark Sunday's one-year anniversary of the earthquake that claimed more than 31,000 lives and devastated the ancient city.

Relatives and friends of survivors have been making pilgrimages to Bam's cemetery to remember the dead with prayers, flowers and candles. Despite President Mohammed Khatami's pledge to rebuild, and help from the international community, much of Bam remains in ruins, and the slow pace of reconstruction has angered survivors. The powerful quake shook the city before dawn on December 26 last year, killing thousands as they slept.

An odd synchronicity, but likely just that. Though as I wrote in "The American Replacement of Natural Disaster," that which used to be expressly "Acts of God" are being folded into the mandate of the US military.

Still, what I find most interesting is not the convergence of dates, but the disparity of response.

I don't recall the same generalized empathy, or an effort to rush aid to Iran as there is now to the nations afflicted.

I don't mean to diminish the magnitude of yesterday's tragedy, but rather elevate the magnitude of Iran's tragedy a year ago yesterday.

I wonder: could some of the discrepancy be accounted by the fact that Western tourists were among the victims yesterday, and the tsunami hit beachfront properties where Westerners could imagine themselves vacationing?

The ancient city of Bam, and 31,000 Iranian lives, just didn't seem to resonate quite the same to our solipsistic culture, did it?

1269 Comments:

"I wonder: could some of the discrepancy be accounted by the fact that Western tourists were among the victims yesterday, and the tsunami hit beachfront properties where Westerners could imagine themselves vacationing?"

Well yes. In fact they explicitly said this on the radio show "Marketplace" I was listening to when I drove home today.

What I find pathetic is that the US is donating only 15 millions dollars to rescue and relief. Not that I am surprised or anything.

The following report was released barely a few days before the Tsunami which swept South and Southeast Asia on December 26.

What is important in this report is that it points to a pattern of major climatic disruptions. In fact several disruptive climatic events took place within the months preceding the dramatic events of December 26.

On December 1, 2004 barely reported in the media, in one of "the largest weather events in recorded human history, 86,800 square miles of China was shrouded in fog, bringing transportation systems (especially air travel) to a virtual standstill throughout the country."

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to the Russian Academy of Sciences

An increasingly panicked global effort is now underway by the world's top scientists to understand an unprecedented series of 'blasts', energy surges, which the planet has been taking from an as yet unknown source which has been bombarding Antarctica with cosmic rays and disrupting Northern Hemisphere weather systems on a global scale.

The first of these cosmic ray blasts occurred nearly 5 years ago and have been increasing in their frequency and intensity since the end of November. The once normally darkened skies of the Northern Hemisphere's Arctic regions are now in twilight due to these blasts. Wayne Davidson, from the Canadian Government's weather station at Resolute Bay, located in the Arctic Circle, says about this mysterious lighting, "The entire horizon is raised like magic, like the hand of God is bringing it up."...

But as one Russian scientist said to us, and who wished to remain anonymous,

"One source, Dr. Peter Beter, has stated that, by 1977, the Russians had placed fission-fusion-fission Superbombs in certain deep undersea trenches around the Phillipines. The source believes that the Phillipines are in the position of a 'keystone' within the giant Pacific Tectonic Plate. Russia had already been setting off lower yield undersea weapons in other areas around the Pacific Ocean causing strong earthquakes."